Many early rotating electrostatic motors used a central bearing with various arrangements of electrostatic stators around the motors to effect rotation. Unfortunately, these motors tended to have problems with friction at the central bearing and have had lifetime issues related to wear of the bearing. The motors typically acted as stepper motors where the rotor rotates with an incremental motion as the stator elements are attracted. Thus it was difficult to precisely adjust a plate to a particular angle with such motors.
Other angular motors have been described which use flexural elements to support a rotating element. Comb drive fingers are arranged in concentric arcs around a central flexural pivot, so that small angular motion is provided around the pivot. See, for example, D. A. Horsley, et al., "Angular Micropositioner for Disk Drives", Proceedings of the Tenth International Workshop on Micro Electro Mechanical Systems, 1997, pp 454-458; L.-S. Fan, et al., "Batch-Fabricated Area-Efficient Milli-Actuators", Proceedings 1994 Solid State Sensor and Actuator Workshop, Hilton Head, pp 38-42; T. Juneau, et al., "Dual Axis Operation of a Micromachined Rate Gyroscope", Proceedings 1997 International Conference on Solid State Sensors and Actuators, V.2, pp 883-890; E. H. Klaassen, et al., "Silicon Fusion Bonding and Deep Reactive Ion Etching; A New Technology for Microstructures", The 8th International Conference on Solid-State Sensors and Actuators, and Eurosensors IX, Stockholm, Sweden, Jun. 25-29, 1995, pp 556-559; W. C. Tang, et al., "Laterally Driven Polysilicon Resonant Microstructures", Sensors Actuators 20, 1989, pp 25-31 (IEEE reprint pp. 53-59) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,346 to Tang et al. Unfortunately, all of these devices provide a limited angular range of motion.
In general, it is an object of the present invention to provide a rotary electrostatic microactuator with an improved range of angular motion.
Another object of the invention is to provide a rotary electrostatic microactuator of the above character in which side instability forces in the one or more comb drive assemblies of the microactuator are minimized.
Another object of the invention is to provide a rotary electrostatic microactuator of the above character which permits rotation of a member extending out of the plane of the microactuator.
Another object of the invention is to provide a rotary electrostatic microactuator of the above character which is other than circular in shape.
Another object of the invention is to provide a rotary electrostatic microactuator of the above character in which the axis of rotation of the microactuator is disposed adjacent a side of the microactuator.